RESIDENTS who have been true blue all their lives say they will try to oust the Conservatives from Basildon Council if they sell off the playing fields.

Thousands of people have joined campaigns to stop the Tory-run council selling playing fields off Kent View Road, Vange, and Fel-mores, Pitsea, to fund the Sporting Village and Olympic-sized swimming pool, in Gloucester Park.

Residents also fought plans for 23 homes on the park off Pound Lane, Laindon, which have now been withdrawn.

Many campaigners are Conserv-ative voters, but they vowed to break the habit of a lifetime and vote Labour or Lib Dem in future if cabinet members continue with the unpopular plans.

Neil Hart, of Kent View Road, said: “I’ve voted Tory all my life, but I’m changing colours over this.

“The next phase of our campaign will be to overturn the Tory majority on the council. We will have placards saying ‘we won’t forget’, and we’ll hold them to that .

“The Conservatives have made out this is just Labour stirring up trouble, but they’ve got the wrong end of the stick. It is angry residents who are driving the fight to save our playing fields.”

Fellow campaigner Phil Jacobs, 53, from Grapnells, Vange, said: “The Tories are definitely going to suffer over this. It wasn’t just all those residents who went to last week’s meeting – there are many elderly people, parents and others who couldn’t get home from work in time, who feel just as strongly.”

Tories who could be under pressure at future elections include Laindon councillors John Dornan, Jilly Hyde, and Frank Tomlin, Vange councillor Luke Mackenzie, and Pitsea councillors Andrew Baggott, Ann Blake, Mo Larkin, Andrew Baggott and Ron Livesey.

All 29 Tory councillors voted down a Labour motion to overturn plans to sell the playing fields, at a meeting attended by more than 170 residents at the Towngate Theatre, St Martins Square, last week.

Tory cabinet member Malcolm Buckley said: “It is their democratic right to campaign for whoever they want.

“Sometimes an unpopular decision is the right decision and I’m certain we’re doing the right thing over the Sporting Village.”